Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor says Trump ‘no different than any other random internet troll’

Pennsylvania Lieutenant Gov. John Fetterman (D) said on Wednesday that President Trump is “no different than any other random internet troll” after the president said on Twitter that his former leads in key battleground states are diminishing because of “surprise ballot dumps,” apparently referring to the counting of mail-in ballots.  

“The president is no different than any other random internet troll saying crazy things that have no basis in reality,” Fetterman said in an interview on MSNBC. “And Twitter constantly puts those kind of statements on hold, and none of those are any factual basis.”  

Trump tweeted earlier that he was leading in many battleground states but that his leads “started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted.” 

Twitter slapped a warning label on the message advising that “some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.” 

Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled. Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the “pollsters” got it completely & historically wrong!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020

The social media platform has placed the warning on multiple subsequent tweets from the president complaining about the election. 

Fetterman’s comments come as votes are still being counted in several swing states, including Pennsylvania. Earlier on Wednesday, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) said the full results of the general election in the state might not be known until Thursday. 

The Trump campaign has already signaled that it is gearing up to contest the election results in Michigan and Wisconsin, where Democratic nominee Joe Biden holds narrow leads. 

When asked about expected legal challenges from Trump’s team in Pennsylvania, where the GOP has fought hard to impose restrictions on mail-in voting, Fetterman said that the ballots were submitted on time and will be counted. 

“And those [ballots], when they’re finalized, are going to be the sum total of how Pennsylvania has weighed in on this presidential election, and that’s a fact,” he said. “I don’t know how you litigate that.”

Trump has worked to sow doubt about the validity of vote-by-mail results, falsely claiming during an address at the White House in the early morning hours of Wednesday that he had already won in states including Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan despite thousands of ballots still being outstanding. His speech received pushback from Democrats and Republicans alike.